'One Size Doesn't Fit All'

How many chief executive officers are publicly asking their most senior marketers to rethink their approach to Muslim consumers or are scrutinizing Asian population trends? Standing at the helm of the United Kingdom's world-wide advertising conglomerate WPP Group PLC, Sir Martin Sorrell does both -- and is shifting his attitudes and strategies accordingly.

Quick to embrace global marketing in the 1980s, Sir Martin now says the one-size-fits-all pendulum has gone too far and is urging his executives to focus on consumer...